Does Servicification Enhance Firm Productivity?

This study quantifies the effect of servicification on productivity using firm-level data from Indonesian manufacturing industries. The empirical strategy employed involves two procedures. The first stage is based on the estimation of productivity from the Cobb-Douglas production function using a semi-parametric method. The second stage involves regressing the derived productivity with servicification, which is proxied by the share of industrial service cost to total input and the share of service revenues to total output. The results show that servification is positively related to productivity. The study also finds evidence of the importance of firm heterogeneity, i.e., foreign ownership and participation in global value chains (GVCs) in boosting productivity.